Flexiscope from Hamlet

A number of years ago Hamlet gave itself the impossible task of developing the worlds first HD and SD video and audio measurement and monitoring instrument that could be packed into one small handheld device. The new instrument would need to provide waveforms, vectors, audio bar graphs, measurement cursors, a range of error detection, decoding of both embedded and AES/EBU audio with a selection of ballistics, audio standard display graticules and to include an external reference - these were prerequisites. At the outset this was thought to be an impossible task - but fortunately the talented engineers in our in-house design team were up to the challenge.

The enclosure needed to be solid and rugged, it needed to house the new electronics LCD panel speaker I/O ports and control panel. The unique design that we ended up with was one determined on the basis of user feedback Comfortable to hold in the hand, solid and capable of withstanding substantial shock. With mounting holes so they can be put on top of cameras it would prove to be the camera-man’s friend and the broadcast engineer’s companion.

One of the most difficult tasks was finding a suitable screen, high resolution but low power. The LCD screen used in the MicroFlex and FlexiScope are the same - the MicroFlex, it's a smaller boxier little brother of the FlexiScope.

From users in the field we had operational reports - this is one such one courtesy of Michael Brennan, Director of Photography: "I had my doubts about the Flexiscope. The hand held form factor isn't ideal for location use, I thought. It has been designed for engineers lurking around a broadcast facility. Its battery life would probably be minuscule and the screen was very small...

But it is significantly lighter, thus reducing shipping costs and cheaper than other battery powered waveforms and it was with these aspects that I decided to give it a try. Well, the longer I used the Flexiscope the more I began to like it.

Although the MicroFlex might be more versatile mounted on top of the camera, for the series of shoots I recently did, a documentary, aerial job and pop promo all without focus pullers, I wouldn't have bolted it to the camera anyway.

As one would expect from Hamlet, the Flexiscope does what it says on the box. It is a waveform and vectorscope with modular plug in options - I was using the multi standard/frame rate HD/SD option without the test signal generator function.

Its added features include an audio monitor and picture monitor. The audio monitor displays four channels in bar graph form and a mini jack enables stereo monitoring.

So for field use the Flexiscope is indeed versatile in that it can enable directors to monitor sound. Internal NiMH ( Nickel Metal Hydride) power the unit for around four hours; long enough for a days shoot if you are using it for checking exposure and occasional monitoring. Hamlet provided a Cannon 4-pin adapter so I could power the unit from a camera battery, but with careful use the internal batteries lasted all day.

The waveform vector display is fairly bright and easily viewable in sunlight. An alarm function uses an audible warning that is programmable among other things for illegal luminance values. The waveform display can be selected to bowtie and has horizontal time-base ranges of H, 2H parade and HMag. Eight sets of display settings can be memorised and recalled using the front panel buttons.

The unit comes with an installation CD for PCs. Error logs can be downloaded to a computer and software upgrades can also be uploaded.

A useful feature is 'Hands Free Timing' that automatically switches between internal and external syncs to easily identify timing errors.

The unit survived the rigours of century degree heat in the Israeli desert, where it became very useful indeed for setting exposure for crane shots. I can also testify that it works at an altitude of 500 feet below sea level!

Then in LA a helicopter shoot using a HD gyro camera the display was easy to see in the cockpit and simply plugged into the existing 'rat's nest' of cables and plugs and being self powered did not risk overloading the aircraft power supply.

The monitor I regularly use in the air includes a small in picture waveform built in. For quality work the in-picture waveforms leaves a lot to be desired, not least they obscure a portion of the image. But the resolution of the flexiscope is far superior, so a separate waveform is the smart solution.

Back in London a HD pop video included quite a few 'freestyle' steadicam shots. It was a breeze to replay and check the steadicam shots from the camera, monitoring framing and focus on a CRT and have full confidence in exposure by referring to the Flexiscope. If the steadicam operator wants to remove the viewfinder to help with weight and balance then the Flexiscope is a time saver as it is handy enough to quickly plug into a camera for a quick check.

A carry case with strap and pouches for options is a handy option to go for keeping everything safe and sound.

I am very impressed that it survived the knocks and abuse of airline travel and location shooting and is one of the few pieces of HD kit that I have strapped myself into that has worked straight out of the box!

The hand held form factor became less of an issue the more I used it. If the squarer MicroFlex might be somewhat more versatile due to its size for some people - it may be less for others."

With feedback like this, we were very pleased to find we had pretty much hit the spot with regards to the initial brief. The worlds first hand held portable HD/SD combined waveform, vector and audio measurement and monitoring instrument.

Telestream at BVE 2013

AJA at BVE 2013

Blackmagic Design at NAB 2012

MOG Technologies at BVE 2012

DiGiCo at BVE 2012

4HM at BVE North 2011

BroadcastShow Christmas Special

Sky UK has recently moved the whole of its Sky News operation into new, state-of-the-art facilities in the Sky Studios building on the Sky TV campus in Osterley, West London. Described as being both the most sustainable broadcast facility of its kind in Europe as well as the most technologically advanced, the Sky Studios project is set to completely change the way that Sky TV works and the scope of content they deliver.

ESL, the world’s largest esports company, relied on a full Blackmagic Design live production workflow at the inaugural League of Legends European Masters tournament. The new league launched this Spring, with the first split taking place in the UK, specifically, at the historic Haymarket Theatre in Leicester.

As with all major events, planning for the Royal Wedding and surveying potential broadcast locations and securing reliable connectivity for video over IP workflows was top of mind for Canada’s Global TV. For major live broadcasts, in particular, when the entire world is watching, an extremely high degree of confidence is crucial because the live feeds need to be transmitted without fail.

That heart-dropping, cold-sweat evoking moment your external hard drive fails to connect to the computer and you realise the precious project you’ve been working on for weeks is lost for good (unless you want to spank hundreds on a recovery service that may or may not retrieve some of the mangled data!)

“A Sound in Motion started as a camera test for the new Sony VENICE CineAlta 6K Digital Cinema Camera and evolved into a much bigger project. The film, presented by Golpe Filmes and released this summer, was directed/edited by Ricardo Teixeira. It is a fictional story based on the way deaf people adapt themselves to daily life situations. The intent of the film is to be a positive influence in the way people think about the ‘differences in human beings’ and about issues related to social inclusion, but without turning it into something moralistic or that seems fundamentalist. Through sounds not speech, words or verbal expression we want to relay a positive message and display a clear gaze upon that difference.”

At the time of writing, the summer World Cup is providing its usual challenge to camera crews trying to televise the bright sunlight of the stadium without losing detail in shaded areas such as the covered terraces. It is a perfect demonstration of the need for high dynamic range. Several broadcasters are experimentally covering this year's tournament in 4K HDR, including the BBC which is streaming dozens of matches via its iPlayer service. HDR is also accompanied by a wider colour space, meaning millions more colours can be displayed than previously. Yet another advance is the adoption of 50p delivery rather than traditional 50i.

Having recently had the immense pleasure of getting my hands on the new Minisoftbox adapter ring for the Dedo DLED3 that takes the soft box that fits the standard DLH4 & DLED7. Size matters here! I discovered that there is only about a half stop difference between the DLED7 and the DLED3 output at the surface of the diffusion fabric which is amazing in terms of efficient light output from these delicious and perfectly formed tiny Bi-colour LED lights.

The migration to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for media processing is underway and growing as broadcasters and content service providers explore new ways to increase agility and operational efficiencies. With media processing SaaS, content and service providers can quickly and easily deploy new channels, deliver a better quality of experience (QoE) to their audiences from anywhere in the world with low latency across all screens.

Recent reports show pay TV in the US peaked in 2012 and will keep dropping over the next five years. Digital TV Research’s North America Pay TV Forecasts state the US will see a 20% drop between 2012 and 2023. Should the UK be readying for a similar change in consumer viewing, or is something different happening here?

In 1998 Dom Bourne dropped out of university and started a business providing transcriptions to production companies. The company operated from his childhood bedroom and Dom hoped it would keep him in beer money for a year or two before he decided what he really wanted to do with his life.

Filmmakers all over the world are embracing an affordable new route to higher-than-4K video recording. It’s just a few weeks since Atomos enabled support for 5.7K Apple ProRes RAW recording from the Panasonic EVA1 with the Shogun Inferno monitor/recorder, but filmmaker David Fernandes and DP Gregory Bennett have already become the first to use 5.7K ProRes RAW on a full-scale production.

One thing that has become a permanent offering here at the University of Portsmouth is our focus on big, outside broadcasts that we offer to students studying BSc Televisions and Broadcasting. Students spent their third year making multiple live programmes, but as they reach the months of April and May, we shift the experience to something that is external, and from a different location.

I am writing this in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave in southern England. Yet it is time to be thinking about the mists and mellow fruitfulness of autumn, or at least the predictably damp and chilly Amsterdam when IBC hits town.

What will be the hot talking points of IBC this year? I am not in a position to talk about what the big vendors will be showing: I have so far received just the one preview press release (take a bow, Calrec).

I have a curious relationship with technology. I’ve been doing it all my life and I see topics come and go over the years. This is the 3rd time around that I’ve seen Artificial Intelligence become trendy and this time, I think it will stick. There are 4 things that are different this time around and they are (in alphabetical order) Amazon, IBM, Google, Microsoft. All of those companies have had AI research programs running for years, but the big change now is that there is enough ubiquitous compute resource in the form of the cloud to make it commercially viable to build products around the platforms.

I currently find myself in between two landmark moments. A few weeks ago I was completely immersed in producing live television content,Â and in a few weeks time I will become an official BSc (Hons) Television & Broadcasting graduate from the University of Portsmouth. When I look back at who I was in my first year of university, I remember a shy girl from the other side of Europe, unsure at whether a career in television was the right path to take. Now, after three years of university, I can definitely say that I made the best choice of my life by choosing this degree. I’m leaving university confident and motivated, knowing that I made the right choice in study, and I really want that career in the television industry.

In the betting and gaming industry, the streaming of live sports from across the globe is a big business. It’s proven that revenues increase when bettors are able to watch the event that they have placed a bet on, providing a far more engaging experience.

Presenting to a capacity audience at a joint meeting of the RTS Thames Valley Centre and SMPTE in Reading, research engineer and industry commentator Tony Orme opened the evening with the assertion - “SMPTE’s ST2110 is the most important development to hit broadcast television since John Logie Baird went head to head with EMI-Marconi at the 1936 BBC trials in Alexandra Palace, London”.

It’s happened. Consumers are demanding 4K UHD content. They have the TVs, smartphones, tablets and other devices they need, and with much of Netflix and Amazon original content in 4K, as well as sports coverage from BT and Sky, consumers have tasted the future of content quality and are hungry for more. But broadcasters need not worry if their customers have enough bandwidth to receive 4K content - the solutions are ready to make 4K distribution a reality. New viewers are waiting if you’re ready to get to them first.

When I arrived at the University of Portsmouth three years ago, I would never have thought in my wildest dreams I would end up where I am now. My time at university has been eye opening, informative and fun. Of all the lessons I have learned in the past three years, resilience is the one that has taught me the most. Starting out in the television industry is hard. Like many others, I’ve applied for graduate job after graduate job and been pipped to the post and rejected many times. I have also started projects and been faced with a variety of unexpected setbacks. Yet, my drive to enter this industry remains just as strong because bouncing back is the joy of resilience.

The Broadcast industry is always chasing new technology. Some of that technology is further than it appears to be, and some of it is closer to adoption than it seems. In part, early adopted technology is accelerated because of customer or business demands, and in the case of IP based environments, the driving factors are speed, cost reduction, and flexibility of workflow. To counterbalance these efficiency-based factors is a desire by content creators and customers to see more 4K HDR content on their new big screens. In some ways the push to deliver 4K workflows also makes the need to manage cost/performance even more urgent.

And as good as it is, and as easy as it is to do, one of the raps on HDR is that some feel that it’s so bright and sharp that it looks odd, unnatural, almost harsh. It’s similar to when we did our first trials with 4K. The resolution was so high you could easily see, for example, even very minor blemishes. It’s perhaps an irony of new technology that the higher the resolution of natural objects the more artificial they tend to look. It’s often a case of capturing images with more resolution or a greater colour space than our eyes and brains can actually perceive.

It’s May, so it seems inevitable that this month’s column should be a bit of a reflection on NAB. And it will, in due course.
But first, some news which I think is interesting. Cisco, the IT giant, is selling off its video software solutions business. It is being bought by an as-yet unnamed new company, backed by venture capitalist Permira Funds.

Advances in high-quality LED lighting over the past couple of decades might be one of the best things that’s ever happened to broadcast and cinema production. Compared to traditional tungsten fixtures, LED lights offer powerful operational and financial benefits from longer life and lower energy bills to brighter, more consistent light and greater control over color temperature. LEDs generate much lower heat and are relatively cool to the touch, meaning they can be used in much smaller rooms and studios without sweating out the talent and crew or damaging property. Plus, compared to traditional tungsten bulbs, LED lights are virtually maintenance-free and can deliver tens of thousands of hours of lamp life.

As a subtitling technology developer and manufacturer we’re currently and frequently hearing remarks along the lines of us ‘having it easy’ at the moment. This has typically spun out from the fact that there hasn’t been any really significant and therefore demanding technology shifts in the industry that have affected us for a while.

Don’t get me wrong - the advent of IP technology has done wonders for the broadcasting universe, especially here in Special Cams land where changing a setting could have involved a rather long walk and climb to a remote camera location! Nevertheless, this said, I still feel that serial communication is a huge contender - not only just in the realm of odd robotics systems, but also across broadcast in general.

In this article, I will walk through the very basics - introducing a few different types of serial and how they work.

Put your hand up if you have more than one online-identity. Keep your hand up if the adverts for your latest online purchase follow you between identities as you surf the web. You can now let your hand fall into your lap because adverts that follow you indicate algorithms that have merged your multiple identities into the one and only you.

Monitoring SDI video content within an installation is and has always been straight forwards. If you have a monitor, and you can see the image correctly, all is well. This is not necessarily the case for metadata and especially not for audio.

Well, those kinds of higher frame rates still pretty much belong to the big guns. The Phantom Flex will give you 2,000 frames a second at ultra HD or 1,000 fps at 4K. It produces truly stunning images, but at a price that is beyond the reach of all but those with the biggest budgets. The camera retails at a cool £100,000 (I’ll have three please) with a daily hire out charge of around £3,000 (including lighting and a technician). IDT’s OS series cameras produce equally high quality images at a cheaper price, but you’re still talking tens of thousands.

When you say you’re broadcasting skydiving, there are two types of reactions. One is the creative, who’ll say something along the lines of “Wow. Those shots must look great” and other is the engineer who’ll say “That must be a real hassle to get all the infrastructure in and secure.”

Easy-to-use, readily-accessible, and consumer-oriented, online file sharing platforms such as Dropbox and Google Drive are, to end users, a pleasant replacement to older file transfer methods such as FTP. FTP is complex to use and requires IT intervention to make almost any change. The pain associated with FTP, which was developed in the 1970s, is one of the factors that opened the door for the rise of online file sharing services in the workplace.

Audio transport methods have remained virtually unchanged in the broadcast industry for more than half a century. Common approaches to routing audio around large broadcast facilities have closely followed methodology employed in telco central offices, with the use of X-Y crossbar or crosspoint switching.

From Terminator to Blade Runner, Alien, and even E.T., science fiction is a genre that will never fail to capture an audience’s imagination. It’s also a genre that encompasses so much more than just space crafts or time travel: frequently providing filmmakers with a platform from which to not only highlight social and political issues, but also explore innovations in the world of filmmaking itself.

FremantleMedia is one of the largest global television-production companies in the world — with one of the biggest and most valuable catalogs. We operate in 36 markets, creating, producing, and distributing content across traditional TV and digital platforms at a rate of more than 10,000 hours of programming per year.

If I think back to last May, I was just finishing my second year at the University of Portsmouth, studying Television and Broadcasting, and winding down for the summer. Then out of the blue I got a message from my course leader, saying I might be getting a call from someone who was a location manager working for Raider productions, you know, the production company behind the upcoming Tomb Raider film, I mean, what!?

Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, is home to major league baseball’s Kansas City Royals. Built in 1973, “The K” has a proud baseball legacy, and goes down in history for winning two World Series championship titles; one in 1985 and another in 2015 — exactly 20 years apart. The most recent win brought a resurgence of baseball fever to the stadium, hosting more than 2.7 million fans during its 2015 winning season.

The use of 360 video, especially on platforms like Facebook and YouTube is really starting to take off. Gone are the days when you needed to buy multiple GoPros and rigs in order to get something decent looking. Now players like Insta360 and even GoPro with their fusion 360 camera are providing single camera, high quality solutions, enabling the masses to put out reasonable quality, certainly watchable, 360 video.

Since it is Omnitek’s 20th anniversary this year, I thought it would be interesting to look back over the technological advances in the broadcast industry over the last few decades and look at the similarities between then and now.

KitPlus recently took delivery of an interesting piece of equipment for review. We like our iPhone gadgets here. For us, useful iPhone gadgets started when the Olloclip lens gave us a wide angle adaptor. This was a good start, finally evolving into a proper tool when Ziess produced the Exolens system for the 5,6 & 7 series iPhones. Around the same time as the Olloclip came out we were testing the Fostex AR4i which was a very exciting development at the time. You have a portable device, that you carry everywhere with you, connected to the world but with very limited audio capabilities. A stereo interface with decent microphones was a real boon!

One of the most significant shifts the broadcast industry has seen over recent years is the adoption of IP technology as a standard infrastructure across the entire broadcast workflow. IP provides a network suitable for routing audio, video and control around a broadcast facility and is providing the answers to many industry challenges.

WLEX – LEX18 – is the NBC affiliate in Lexington, Kentucky, and part of the Cordillera Communications Group. As a very popular local station with a broadcast area that covers 40 counties across central Kentucky we have a big commitment to news, broadcasting more than seven hours of live programming on a typical day.

Few can argue that great sound design is one of the most important elements to any moving picture. Mute most horrors, and the difference in fear factor will be enormous. Visualize Jaws or Star Wars, and John Williams’s iconic score will instantly come to mind.

On the most recent occasion I was trimmed, my hairdresser had just returned from a holiday in Hawaii.

Where she thought she was going to die. She thought this because the state’s emergency alert system was triggered, sending messages across all available platforms, for 38 minutes, that a ballistic missile was about to strike. That, I suspect, is the sort of thing that casts a pall across your holiday.

Why did it happen? Essentially it happened because an operator selected the wrong menu item. “I feel very badly from what’s happened,” he is quoted as saying, in a somewhat mangled version of English which may at least in part explain his difficulties with menu items.

Last year, Netflix’s global revenue reached $11 billion, with 24 million new names added to its subscribers’ list. Viewers are certainly making their preferences heard – and voting with their remote controls to show that over-the-top (OTT) content is here to stay.

The relative success of NAB is down to people. The individuals we meet, the relationships we make and renew with customers and the desire to work together to develop a technology solution to any given challenge.

I would like to begin this article by clarifying what we at Shotoku mean when we talk about VR in live production. It’s not the production of immersive, 360 content where you need to wear a headset; we are talking about virtual studio (VS) and augmented reality (AR) work, such as placing graphics into a green screen environment or physical set. The technology used for this work is entirely different, though equally specialist – therefore it is important to understand the challenges of this kind of production in order to make informed kit choices.

If you don’t recognise the name Peter Rowsell instantly you no doubt would recognise him in person, from the famous ‘Pink Coconut’ parties during IBC (Brighton) in the 80s or the name ‘Polar Video or Polar Graphics’ both companies which he’s built up over the years.

Lighting is an incredibly important part of any TV production, and it can make a huge difference to what is seen on-screen. If the right lights are used in the right way, it can create a mood, set a tone and convey a certain atmosphere.

Filmmaker, director and editor, Leonardo Dalessandri first came to fame with his stunning video ‘Watchtower of Turkey,’ which with more than 200 million views, garnered the accolade of Best Vimeo Video in 2014. His vibrant images are combined with a unique editing style, incorporating slow motion, hyper lapses and invisible match cuts to produce genuinely breathtaking final results.

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